Miracle Mile district again looking for new leader

Tuesday

STOCKTON — For the third time in less than a year, the Miracle Mile Improvement District is looking for a new executive director.

Board president Kim Byrd said Tuesday that the MMID and its most recent executive director, Jaime Watts, parted ways last week.

“We parted on good terms,” Byrd said. “We wish Jaime the best in her future endeavors.”

It’s been a turbulent 1½ years for the district:

• In June 2017, city code enforcers shut down the nine businesses in the Empire Theatre, including mainstays like Empresso Coffee and Casa Flores. The building remains shuttered.

• One month later, the MMID fired Executive Director Mimi Nguyen after allegations arose that she had spent thousands of the district’s dollars on personal merchandise and travel. Nguyen ultimately pleaded guilty to embezzlement charges. She was ordered to pay restitution and sentenced to 180 days in jail.

• Meanwhile, a dissident property owner has been at odds with the MMID for at least the past two years and even sought at one point to put the MMID out of business. The MMID is a property-based improvement district, a body that allows property owners by a majority vote to tax themselves.

• Watts is the second executive director to leave the MMID in the 19 months since Nguyen’s ouster. Karin Moss lasted about a week last year.

Matthew Grizzle, the MMID board president at the time, wrote of Moss, “The reason that we mutually severed the relationship was because we couldn’t come to (a) complete contract agreement.”

Moss wrote in an email, “We just weren’t on the same page and couldn’t reach a contractual agreement.”

Twelve months later, following Watts' less-than-one-year stint, the MMID once again is seeking new leadership.

“We’re going to take the appropriate amount of time to find the right executive director for the Miracle Mile,” Byrd said. “We’re not going to rush to hire.”